USB hubs in VMs

[NeghVar]

If I plug in a USB hub to a USB port which is bridged to the VM, will all the ports on the hub be part of the VM too?

 

[Spartacus09]

It should assuming pasthrough is working properly, I did this with vmware on a Dell poweredge on esxi 5.0 way back when.

 

[SGalbincea]

For USB devices that you need to connect to VMs I highly recommend this solution: https://www.digi.com/products/models/aw-usb-2

I get no compensation for this, just something I have used on several projects.

 

[Eickst]

For USB devices that you need to connect to VMs I highly recommend this solution: https://www.digi.com/products/models/aw-usb-2

I get no compensation for this, just something I have used on several projects.

No experience with that particular unit, I do second the advice though. Using an IP based USB port makes life easy when you have to move VM's around. I've used stuff like this in the past to get around those USB hardlock keys for some server software that insists on using it for licensing

 

[kdh]

Wow, thats kind of cool you can do that, never thought of doing that. What is the use case?

 

[Spartacus09]

Wow, thats kind of cool you can do that, never thought of doing that. What is the use case?

For ours we wanted our badge system to be a VM rather than a physical box however it required a USB authentication key to allow use of the software, we did USB passthrough accordingly.

 

[kdh]

Damn, thats pretty slick.

 

[dbwillis]

We use the Digi USB over IP connections as well, they work great

 

[ironforge]

For USB devices that you need to connect to VMs I highly recommend this solution: https://www.digi.com/products/models/aw-usb-2

I get no compensation for this, just something I have used on several projects.

We have a digi 4 port USB in our environment. Use it for USB license dongles and have it passed-through to a VM license server. Used to have a physical license server with the key plugged in the back, not anymore! Works great.

Just for kicks I have also passed-through a usb to serial port adapter on my desktop PC, to a VM. Had the serial port plugged into a cisco switch. Now you can console into the switch from the VM. Handy if you want a vendor to remote into your VM and you can erase it when he's done.

 

[Easius]

I've just ordered one of the Digi 5 port Anywhere USB... hoping to plug in digital certificate USB tokens in so our VDI users can sign documents anywhere without having to bring to PC with USB token. Hope it works.

 

[Spartacus09]

Just keep in mind with passthrough it's assigned to a specific VM, and depending on your VDI infrastructure may not assign the same VM to the same user each time (or is yours small enough you have dedicated VMs to dedicated users?).

 

[Easius]

Just keep in mind with passthrough it's assigned to a specific VM, and depending on your VDI infrastructure may not assign the same VM to the same user each time (or is yours small enough you have dedicated VMs to dedicated users?).

Yes luckily small enough with dedicated VMs.